E1M1: Hangar (Doom)

E1M1: Hangar is the first map of Knee-Deep in the Dead in Doom. It was designed by John Romero and uses the music track "At Doom's Gate". Being the first map in the game, it is small and straightforward, with a par time of 30 seconds.

Essentials
There are no keys in this map, so you can go directly to the exit. From the start point (A), walk forward across the blue floor, turn right, and go through the door into the central computer room (B). Proceed through this room and through a short passage, and you will enter a large room with a nukage pool across which goes a zig-zag bridge (C). Go through the door on the far side, then through the exit door into the final room (D).

Other points of interest
To the left of the start room is a platform with green armor on a pedestal (K). If you play on Ultra-Violence or Nightmare!, watch out for the sergeants that guard it; there are two by the armor and one behind each of the pillars by the staircase. They can cause quite a bit of damage due to their awkward positions, but on the positive side killing them gives you an early shotgun.

[Added in Ultimate Doom] In the alcove leading to the green armor, there are two pillars. The north pillar has a switch (E) which opens up a door to the courtyard (F) with the blue armor and, in multiplayer mode, a rocket launcher. As a player walks through this door, another large door will open up, making it possible to get to the courtyard from the computer room. These new doors were likely added to improve gameplay in deathmatch mode since they provide two extra ways to reach the rocket launcher. To register secret #1, however, it is still necessary to activate and walk through (from either side) the differently-colored wall described below.

Secrets

 * 1) In the corridor at the end of the zig-zag room, a portion of the west wall is colored differently and has a corpse lying next to it (G). Activate the wall to gain access to the courtyard with the blue armor. (sector 83)
 * 2) After having entered the dark room with the exit door, return to the zig-zag room. The platform with the imp(s) has now been lowered, yielding access to a secret room (H) containing a shotgun. (sector 86)
 * 3) [Added in version 1.2]  After opening secret #2, walk toward the north end of the zig-zag room. As you cross the shadow line (I), a lift will lower in the shotgun alcove (J), visible from where you are standing. Run and you can catch it before it goes up. (sector 87) At the end of the hallway is a fake see-through wall, the first such wall in the game.

Secret exit [ Xbox only ] : In secret #1, head to the very east of the courtyard, and then follow the northern wall until it begins to bend northwest. Press on this section of the wall (X) to be taken to the Xbox-exclusive secret level, E1M10: Sewers.

Bugs
Slime trails may be visible in the following locations (see screen shots below):
 * Viewing the zig-zag room from the north entrance.
 * Looking toward the imp platform from the south end of the zig-zag walkway.
 * Entering the hidden area behind the imp platform, then immediately turning to face the right-hand wall.
 * Standing slightly northwest of the exit door, looking east.

There are 7 known anomalies in this level's REJECT table.

Design oddities
The level contains at least 89 unnecessary texture assignments on sidedefs.

The way the sky is set up in the outside area (sector 47) makes the zig-zag room building seem smaller from the outside than it is on the inside (sector 56 and others).

Demo files

 * [[Media:e1m1secr.lmp|No monsters, 100% secrets walkthrough]] (file info)
 * [[Media:e1m1wik1.lmp|100% kills, items, and secrets on ITYTD]] (file info)
 * [[Media:e1m1wik2.lmp|100% kills, items, and secrets on HNTR]] (file info)
 * [[Media:e1m1wik3.lmp|100% kills, items, and secrets on HMP]] (file info)
 * [[Media:e1m1wik4.lmp|100% kills, items, and secrets on UV]] (file info)

Routes and tricks
For a straight speedrun, the simplest path through the map is also the fastest one, and there are no known tricks. However, the route through the outdoor area is often used in episode runs since this gives a blue armor (which helps surviving E1M3: Toxin Refinery) and an easy shotgun (needed for E1M2: Nuclear Plant). This takes 2-3 extra seconds, and is typically avoided in TAS episode runs, wherein a shotgun is instead obtained by taking down a sergeant in the zig-zag room on the fly.

Whereas Doom Done Quick uses the route through the courtyard, Doom Done Quicker uses the TAS route, which Adam Hegyi managed to play in 0:09. According to the text file, it "is an incredibly hard run due to the timeloss inevitable in getting a shotgun and the fact that 0:09 is a borderline time here in any case". Modern TAS runs go through this map in 0:07.

0:08 has been achieved in a PrBoom+ demo by Aleksey Kamenev (4shockblast) without any use of TAS. Previously, it was first achieved in a built demo by Jonathan Rimmer. Later, the same time was first reached by Juho Ruohonen (ocelot) in no monsters mode. In order to achieve this time, strafe50 and very clean movement are essential. Additionally, luck is needed with the monster movement and shooting so the player's path is not blocked.

Because E1M1 is small and sparsely populated, speed records can often be set in pacifist style. (This is more difficult with fast monsters, of course.)

When recording in a style which requires 100% kills, some players use the route through the courtyard because it arouses many of the surrounding monsters sooner, encouraging infighting. In Tyson style this choice has an additional benefit, earlier access to the bullet box.

When recording in a style which requires 100% secrets, it is useful to leave one or two enemies alive in the computer room. With luck, you can open secret #2, return to the zig-zag room, then step into the shotgun alcove just as a monster walks out of the computer room and triggers the elevator leading to secret #3, saving you several seconds.

In an episode run (notwithstanding the above regarding stringent speed optimization), even expert players sometimes make brief detours to replenish health near the exit.

Current Compet-n records
The Compet-n records for the map are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on July 6, 2020.

Current DSDA records
The records for the map at the Doom Speed Demo Archive are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on October 5, 2023.

Deathmatch
The Hangar level is recommended for deathmatch mode for a few key reasons. Given that it is the first level of the shareware game, almost everyone is familiar with it. It also has a good array of multiplayer-only weapons and is small enough to work well with 4 or fewer players.

Player spawns
This level contains five spawn points:
 * 1) facing east. (thing 69)
 * 2) facing north. (thing 70)
 * 3) facing south. (thing 71)
 * 4) facing north-west. (thing 72)
 * 5) facing south. (thing 73)

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level:

Inspiration and development
In the Doom Bible, the original design document for Doom written by Tom Hall in 1992, the first level of the game was supposed to be a spaceship hangar called "Hangar 2". It is described as fallen into disuse, and now serving as storage for used-up equipment and junk. In one of the rooms the soldiers play cards in their free time. This hangar was supposed to be carved into the wall of a canyon. Despite the name, E1M1 bears no similarity to that early level concept. The Doom v0.3 alpha version did feature an initial level based on this "Hangar 2" sketch, but it was later redesigned to become E2M7:Spawning Vats in the released game.

Although E1M1 is the first level of the game, Romero has stated that it was the last level that he created. This reflects part of his personal philosophy of level development: since it takes time to become proficient making levels for a new game engine, making the first level last ensures that new players will be greeted with a good quality level. Romero has also described E1M1 as a "classic horseshoe" design.

Even with its small size, E1M1 showcases the new capabilities of the Doom engine: floors of varying heights that can be reached by stairs or lifts, windows through which outdoor areas and the sky are visible, non-orthogonal walls, varying grades of lighting and environment hazards like the nukage pools.

Trivia

 * Whenever a map editor for a major is released, someone usually recreates E1M1 as both a tribute to Doom and a demo of the editor's capabilities. Games for which E1M1 has been recreated include Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, ', ', , Doom 3 and Doom (2016).


 * The revised version of this map in Ultimate Doom contains sidedefs.


 * In the Doom95 launcher for Ultimate Doom, the title of this level is misspelled "Hanger". "Hanger", however, is used as a level name in TNT: Evilution.


 * The linedef by the southeast corner of the zig-zag walkway (194) does not block monsters' movement like the rest of the linedefs between the walkway and the adjacent nukage pools. As a result, monsters may walk into or out of the nukage via that specific section of the walkway. This is probably intentional; when you walk into the room directly before the exit, a tower with an imp (two imps on UV) will be lowered. If this part of the walkway was marked as monster-blocking, these imps would be stuck in the nukage, but it was left unflagged so the imps could follow behind the player and ambush them.


 * In the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn ports of Doom, a heavy weapon dude replaces a sergeant that was located in the central computer room, behind the structure in the middle of the room, when playing on the Ultra-Violence skill. This is the first time a Doom II monster is found in an Ultimate Doom level. A pain elemental also populates the curving passage of secret #3 on that skill level.


 * Selim Benabdelkhalek (Bastard) claimed to have recorded a speedrun in 0:08, which he refused to submit to Compet-N until certain it was optimal.


 * This map can be completed in 0:02 using slow motion, the no-clipping cheat, and the parameter.